


Like a Fish and Something That Kills Fish

by orphan_account



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Awkwardness, M/M, inadvertent confessions, windows to the soul
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-21
Updated: 2013-04-21
Packaged: 2017-12-09 01:55:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/768612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is nowhere Castiel would rather be than anywhere else at all, and can Dean please have an expedited return ticket from this point in the conversation?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like a Fish and Something That Kills Fish

“I need you to stick around this time and not go running off, okay?”

Dean and Castiel share a stare and a silence that stretches on and on.

...And on.

“Look, I'm no good at this touchy-feely bullshit, alright?” Dean finally erupts, throwing his arms into the air. “I'm trying to bare my soul or whatever and all I ever get is that same old blank stare in return,” he turns to leave. “You know what, just forget it. Nevermind.”

“I don't have a soul,” Castiel says, quietly.

That was not exactly the response Dean expected to hear. He turns back.

“Sorry, what?”

This time it's Castiel that moves to leave, but Dean catches him by the shoulder and spins him around before he can get far. Bewildering doesn't even begin to cover the course of this conversation.

“What are you talking about?”

“Baring one's soul, as you say.”

“Cas, you gotta go slow here. Human, remember? I don't really know much about this soul stuff.”

Castiel won't look at him.

“I have held yours, Dean. When I raised you from hell. And I apologize if my staring at it makes you uncomfortable, it's just that... it... it is a good soul. It is– it is, to me, the best of souls. I am sorry. And I am sorry, too, that I do not have one.”

Dean pinches the bridge of his nose. He'd have thought that maybe falling would have made Cas more approachable, that it would have leveled the playing field, made him easier to understand. Apparently he'd been grossly mistaken.

“Right, still not getting it. One thing at a time: what do you mean gazing at 'it' makes me uncomfortable?”

Castiel makes a half-hearted attempt to shrug away the hand still on his shoulder, but it won't budge. Even without his angelic strength, he could brush it away if he wanted, but the weight he feels isn't physical.

“You do not wish me to stare at it,” he says. “The eyes are the windows to the soul, and you prefer that I do not look too long; you become agitated.”

Dean feels his eyebrows pushing themselves downward, furrowing in confusion.

“Wait, you mean, _literally_ the windows to the soul?”

“It is not merely a poetic metaphor,” Castiel tilts his face even lower, trying to hide what Dean can now see is a fierce and shameful blush. “And I am sorry that my own stare is so... blank, as you put it. I am sorry that I do not have a soul. I am sorry I am not human enough.”

Castiel shrugs harder this time, enough to push the shocked hand from his shoulder, and turns once more, wishing for all the world that he was still able to disappear into another time or place. There is nowhere he would rather be, right now, than anywhere else at all.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Dean steps around in front of him, head ducked low, trying to meet his gaze. “Not so fast. That is so completely not at all what I meant. To err, and all that shit? I was not accusing you of being soulless – that's Sam's gig, in any case.”

Castiel's eyes finally flick upwards to meet Dean's, and it is almost painful, as always, to look into them. It is breathtaking and beautiful and, as always, he finds that he cannot look away.

“So, you can see my soul? Right now?” Dean asks. Castiel swallows, and nods. “Okay, well, I can't see yours.” Castiel flinches and Dean rushes to explain, “I mean, I can't see anybody's. Ever. Human! I can't see, I dunno, divine energy or whatever souls are made of.”

Dean closes his eyes, suddenly self-conscious at how on display he's been this whole time, and huffs a laugh. “I didn't know mine was showing, either. I just thought the staring was getting kind of intense.”

“You did not know that I could see into the very depths of you?” Castiel asks, voice full of honest, somewhat shocked curiosity.

“Um, _no_ , dude.”

“You do not know what you have been displaying for the world to see of you?”

“Getting kind of uncomfortable with this conversation,” Dean says, squeezing his eyelids even more tightly closed, as if that will take back whatever has already managed to escape through them.

Castiel is leaning in very close. Dean cannot see him, but he can feel breath on his face, can feel the heat radiating close to his own chest.

“And you cannot see into the essences of others? That does explain quite a bit, to be truthful.... How, then, do you expect to communicate your innermost self to others? To express yourself fully?”

Dean shifts his weight and reaches a hand to grope behind him, wishing that he could get away, but unwilling to make a move with his eyes closed and more unwilling to open them.

“I don't, Cas. In case you haven't noticed. Me and talking about feelings are, are like a fish and a bicycle. Or like a fish and something that kills fish. Like, I dunno, a fisherman. Feelings are a fisherman,” and he is babbling like nobody's business now. How did he ever get to this point, and can he please have his money back and an expedited return ticket?

“'Follow me and I will make you fishers of men,'” Castiel says, enigmatically.

“Um, okay. Great. Yeah. 'Teach a man to fish', yeah? 'Feed him for a lifetime'? You hungry?”

There is the gently brush of a fingertip on his eyelids, first the right and then the left. The touch surprises him, but he tries not to flinch at it, standing his ground.

“Open your eyes, Dean Winchester,” Castiel commands, softly.

He does, slowly, and all he can see are Cas' own staring back at him.

“What?” Dean finally manages, words sticking in the back of his throat. He's not sure he wants to know what has apparently been so obvious to everybody but himself.

“I must say it in words in order for you to understand? You cannot see for yourself?” Castiel says in a way that makes it clear he has confirmed some manner of dawning suspicion.

Dean nods. His eyes are beginning to water, but he is too afraid of what will happen if he is the first to look away. This is it, when he finds out precisely what it is that is so deeply, intrinsically wrong inside of him. What he's been too stupid to see. "What's wrong with me? How bad is it?"

"There is nothing wrong." He may not be able to sense unfathomable secrets of being when he looks in Castiel's eyes, but he does see the smile in them when he says, "And it is not something in yourself that you have missed."

"It's something I'm suposed to have seen in you?"

"Yes."

His stomach is beginning to roll. Relief, he's sure, but coupled with equal measures fear and trepidation. Cas' secrets have never really worked out in his favor.

"So, what? What have I been too stupid and too human to see all this time? What's so important that now you have to lower yourself to my level to talk me through it?" he demands, fists curling at his sides.

"Only that I feel for you as you for me."

Dean blinks, once, twice, and, after a moment, whistles low.

"I'm sorry," he says. "That _does_ sound bad."

"Yes, the worst," Castiel pauses. "Shall I tell you about it?"

**Author's Note:**

> I'm pretty convinced Cas stares so much because he can see through the windows of the soul. Though I am a bit feverish currently, so that may be why I think such things.
> 
> Any comments, recommendations, suggestions or spring-cold remedies are welcomed.


End file.
